I've been following the doping scandals in biking for the last few days, not because I give a crap about sports, but because I thought the testing standard, the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio seemed a little bit arbitrary as a means of identifying steroid abuse. That is, it seemed as if normal biological variability and fluctuation might explain the discrepancies in Landis' abnormally high results for several reasons. One, the idea of taking steroids late in the race (all his earlier tests were negative) seemed foolish. Anabolic steroids are not going to help a bicyclist acutely, although there are suggestions it might help recovery. Blood doping would have made more sense than steroids at that stage of the game. Second, he knew he was going to be tested, and since very high doses are required for the effects of anabolic steroids, there would be no benefit to a slight increase in his testosterone levels. Third, you would just have to be a total and complete idiot, in a million ways to try to get away with this.

A good primer on the science behind the testing also led me to believe that the ratio is arbitrary and should be ignored. Further it shows that it isn't too extraordinary for some people to naturally have a ratio outside the legal bounds (alhtough historical tests should also have been higher), so I don't think the ratio test itself will ever truly be conclusive.

It turns out that I'm the jackass now becausethe doping result has been confirmed by identifying the testosterone itself as synthetic. The isotope testing is much more believable to me so I'm now convinced that it's a closed case unless another sample shows this to be a false-positive.

However, I still have to ask, how much could this have helped him? Why be so stupid? And what about this Gatlin guy? Are these guys afflicted by extreme stupidity as well as dishonesty?

There's still one more great part of the story. My favorite part is how they're rushing to get the tests done because otherwise the French go on vacation and everyone would have to wait until September for confirmation. Ha!

McQuaid said the cycling union then asked the lab to analyze Landis’s B sample, which he said was allowed under the organization’s rules, so the test could be concluded before the lab closed for a two-week vacation this Friday. If the tests cannot be finished before then, the results may not come until late August or early September, he said.

Lucky friggin French.